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WILKES-BARRE - For the first time since the Civil War, postal customers will get their mail five days a week instead of six.

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe announced Wednesday that, due to its "urgent" financial condition, the U.S. Postal Service will eliminate Saturday deliveries of everything but packages, starting in August. Delivery to post office boxes will continue, and post offices open on Saturdays will stay open.

Critics, including U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Moosic, and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, say losing six-day delivery will hurt rural residents, the elderly, disabled people and small businesses.

"It's going to affect people who get checks," Jack Morgan of Hanover Township said on his way out of the Wilkes-Barre Post Office.

He noted of the service, "They're so far in the hole it's not going to make a difference."

The postal service sustained a $15.9 billion loss in the last budget year. The move to cut Saturday deliveries is expected to save $2 billion a year.

Cartwright's spokesman Shane Seaver questioned whether the service is allowed to cut services without Congressional action.

According to The Associated Press, the proposed change in service is based on an apparent legal loophole which may be a gamble.

Six-day postal delivery started in 1863. Since 1984, every annual appropriations bill has included a rider prohibiting five-day-only postal service. The current bill is not set to expire until the end of the month, so, Seaver said, "it is still part of law that the postal service has to maintain six-day service."

Because the federal government is operating under a temporary spending measure rather than an appropriations bill, Donahoe says it's the agency's interpretation that it can make the change itself.

The change isn't sitting well with postal workers.

"I don't agree with cutting any service at all," said John Kishel, president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 175 in Wilkes-Barre. "I don't think any employee agrees with the route they're taking. If you're losing money, why would you want to cut service?"

He said, "As far as employees, if I had to guess, I don't think it's going to hurt the carrier craft as much because they still have the package services."

Decline in mail volume is part of the problem. Frank Hohal of Wilkes-Barre said he saw the change coming: "What really ruined them is the Internet."

He says older people will want to get their mail, and wishes Saturday delivery would continue.

But Hohal wants to save pensions, which he believes people who worked hard all their lives deserve.

The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires the USPS to pay more than $5 billion each year through 2017 into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund in order to pre-fund an estimated 75 years worth of pension costs.

"No other entity - public or private - bears this burden," Cartwright stated. "Yet the same law prohibits the Postal Service from raising postage rates to cover the cost."

The USPS has undergone major restructuring since 2006, cutting annual costs by approximately $15 billion, reducing its workforce by 28 percent, and consolidating more than 200 mail processing locations, including in Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, where processing is outsourced to the Lehigh Valley.

Cartwright added that the Postal Service has also closed 13,000 post offices, drastically reduced hours of operation and downgraded mail delivery standards.

Barletta spokesman Tim Murtaugh said the congressman supported six-day delivery in the past and continues to do so, even co-sponsoring a bill in the previous Congress.

People who live in more rural areas have come to depend on six-day delivery, as do people who are elderly and less mobile, Murtaugh said. He said there will be a "snowball effect" on the local economy if the USPS scales back service.

It's no secret the service operates at a deficit; in the past, it didn't have competition like FedEx and UPS, Murtaugh said. But, he said, "I think looking at performance, the way the post office operates, is a good idea."

That's something Cartwright, as a member of Congress' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which handles postal operations, is looking to tackle, Seaver said. Getting a comprehensive postal reform legislation bill through Congress would solve a lot of the issues, he said.

Kishel noted that the USPS just raised postal rates last Monday, and "These kinds of things turn off customers."

"Customers are mad. They want their service, and I don't blame them. The Postal Service was created to serve the American people," Kishel said. "Provide that service, and you will be able to survive. If you're cutting those services, it's only a matter of time, and there won't be any business for the Postal Service."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

eskrapits@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2072

QUICK INFO:

The Postal Service announced Wednesday that it planned to cut back to five-day-a-week deliveries for everything except packages.

The details:

>> Saturday delivery of mail, such as letters and magazines that are going to street addresses, would end beginning the week of Aug. 5. Delivery would be only Monday through Friday.

>> Mail addressed to P.O. boxes still would be delivered on Saturday.n Post offices now open on Saturday would remain open on Saturday.

>> Delivery of packages of all sizes would remain unchanged.

>> Officials estimated the cutback would save around $2 billion annually when it was fully in place.

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